OFT price-fixing cheat Glyn Jackson is back working at Peverel sites

Glyn Jackson Communications escaped £35,700 fine from OFT over bogus tendering by going into liquidation. Now a new company, Safeguard, is at work at the Adelphi site in Harrogate

Eight months after the Office of Fair Trading revealed the Cirrus collusive tendering scandal, scamming contractor Glyn Jackson is again working on retirement sites managed by Peverel.

Glyn Jackson, whose company did not pay an OFT fine of £35,700 after going into liquidation,, is this week installing similar electronic systems with a new company at the Adelphi retirement site in Harrogate.

It was reported that Glyn Jackson, based in Conisbrough in Doncaster, was also employed at an unnamed site in Essex, also managed by Peverel.

The inept and protracted OFT inquiry into the Cirrus scandal – for which Peverel was disgracefully granted “leniency” – found that Peverel had cheated pensioners in £1.4 million tenders at 65 retirement sites.

The archive of Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation stories on this scandal is here

Glyn Jackson Communication’s role was to make bogus pitches for business by bidding slightly higher than Peverel’s Cirrus subsidiary, which then won all the contracts.

Glyn Jackson Communications Limited, of which Glyn Jackson and Jayne Michelle Jackson were directors, went into liquidation in September 2012 while the OFT inquiry was in progress.

But in April 2012 they had already become directors of Safeguard Communication Systems Limited.

Safeguard is being employed by a subcontractor at Adelphi. Peverel says this was without its knowledge and Glyn Jackson will not be employed again.

On Monday Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation / LKP was contacted by an anonymous caller who was indignant that a proven price-fixing cheat was again working at Peverel sites. We contacted Peverel for an explanation.

Its full statement is below.

The OFT inquiry into the Cirrus scandal involved tendering scams between 2005 and 2009 – for most of which period Peverel, Cirrus and, of course, the retirement site freeholds themselves belonged to the Tchenguiz Family Trust. The scams predated Tchenguiz’s ownership of Peverel / Cirrus in late 2006.

The scandal has prompted Sir Peter Bottomley to say that there was ‘possible criminal behaviour involving Peverel’ over the tendering scams

The other stooge companies involved in the Cirrus scandal were Peter O’Rourke Electrical, based in York, whose directors were Peter Alan O’Rourke and Tracey Sandra O’Rourke. It went into administration in June 2012 and so avoided fines of £15,933.

Only Owens Installations, based in Dorchester, is still operating with directors Jeremy David Owen and Joanne Owens. It – alone – paid a fine of £1,777.

Owen is the only person involved in the cartel – including past and present Cirrus operatives – who has expressed any remorse for cheating the most vulnerable and dependent in the community.

Of course, the prime culprit was Peverel / Cirrus itself, which escaped scot-free thanks to the OFT accepting the absurdity that Peverel had somehow turned itself in and therefore qualified for “leniency”.

Janet Entwistle, Peverel CEO, has assured Sir Peter Bottomley and Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation that all those involved in the collusive tendering have now left the company.

At a meeting with Sir Peter and Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation on February 10, Entwistle backed Andy Davey, Peverel’s “director of business excellence”, who was appointed head of Cirrus in 2007 – at the height of the collusive tendering scandal.

She assured the meeting that all those involved in the practice had now left the company.

The OFT decision to grant Peverel “leniency” in December 2009– and then to begin the inquiry a leisurely 18 months later – has infuriated politicians.

Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation had urged the authorities to act long before Peverel’s change of heart, including LibDem MP Ed Davey, now the Energy Secretary.

The Times newspaper even outlined the scam in detail on December 4 2009. Nonethless, the OFT – now dissolved – accepted that Peverel had turned itself in.

A month before Peverel accepted that the game was up its chief executive Nigel Bannister was quoted in The Times on November 7 2009 saying:

“People are reading a conspiracy into a problem that isn’t there. We use Cirrus because it is an excellent service.”

He is also a director of Freemont Property Managers Limited along with Keith (Alan) Edgar, another former managing director of Peverel Retirement and Philip James Cummings, also an ex-Peverel executive.

Peverel Retirement uses independent third parties to manage tenders for all major works. Peverel Retirement has instructed these independent third parties not to issue any new work to Peter O’Rourke Electrical Limited, Owens Installations Limited, Glyn Jackson Communications Limited or any new companies that their previous management are now running.

At The Adelphi, after the independently-run tender process, residents chose Goldshield to install their new emergency call upgrade system.

Unfortunately, we have discovered [On being informed by Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation] that Glyn Jackson was subcontracted by Goldshield to carry out part of the work at The Adelphi without our knowledge. We have raised this with Goldshield and its management team has confirmed it will not subcontract any work to Glyn Jackson or Safeguard at any Peverel Retirement developments in the future.

We are reviewing our internal processes with a view to ensuring that this doesn’t happen again at any Peverel managed site.

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